Unnoticed Tears
by mysterygirl565
Summary: The most bitter tears are shed alone. The most complex tragedies are left untold. But a story is a story, and therefore meant to be heard. A drabble series, getting in the minds of HP characters at their darkest hours.
1. Stunning

**Stunning**

_stunning_

Stunning. She had wanted to look stunning, merely for one night. Had that really been too much to ask for? Apparently so.

_beautiful_

It wasn't as if anyone could call her vain. She wasn't. Most of the time she didn't care how she looked. Most of the time she didn't bother with makeup and dresses, trying to look beautiful. It had only been one night.

_pretty_

She had loved the feel of the sparkling blue dress around her waist. Gone was her bushy hair, replaced by a sleek bun. She had twirled and laughed for a few minutes, just because she felt like it. And she deserved to have that feeling more often, just like any girl. She deserved to feel pretty.

_gorgeous_

Elegantly stepping, descending down the stairs arm in arm with her date. She felt people's eyes on her, felt all of the girls staring at her with envy. It just made her feel all the more gorgeous. She smiled at everyone, immersed in herself as she had never been before.

_lovely_

The dancing had made her feel lightheaded and lighthearted. It was uncanny how lithe she had become, how quickly her feet moved, how gracefully she spun. She didn't think that she had ever laughed more than that evening.

_striking_

_He _was the one who had ruined everything. He was the one who had brought her whole evening cascading down. He had blamed her, made fun of her, accused her. He hadn't thought she looked striking. And she couldn't figure out why.

_stunning_

Afterward she had gone to the bathroom, crying. She stood in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection - her puffy eyes, her red face, her disheveled hair. She had wanted to be stunning, but it almost seemed pointless now. Pointless, when you were…

_unwanted_


	2. Outshone

**Outshone **

Outshone, every single time. Out of all the stars in the sky he was the weakest.

As if he wasn't already smirked at by the bigger stars, glowing powerfully in night's wake, surrounding him on all sides. But then he spotted two other stars, not too far, not too close. They were just like him, it seemed, except they glowed a thousand times brighter.

It made him immediately hate them, somewhere in the deepest, smallest recess of his mind, but at the same time he was drawn to them, for how beautifully they sparkled.

He hardly fit in with them, and he knew it. He felt even fainter with them around; they were better a hundred times over. But it was like an addiction, feeding off of their light, knowing it would never truly be his.

For some reason beyond him, they pretended not to notice. They congratulated him, complimented him, acted as if he was their equal. But in truth, he was just a pinpoint in the sky, while they were two blinding forces.

In the end he somehow managed to fit in among them, though he always subconsciously felt he was somewhere that he wasn't meant to be. During the day he always pretended he was just as bright as them, that he could reach their heights. But when it was night, and the stars began to light up the darkness, reality would always catch up with him. He would never glow as brightly as they did.

Outshone, every single time.


	3. Soulless

**Soulless**

She was dark, they were black. She was cruel, they were inhuman. You would think that they would fit with her perfectly. But the small part of her that was still human fought against everything about them, perhaps because she knew they were far more powerful than she.

Grey room, empty except for her and the chair she sat in. Alone. Waiting.

Black swirling robes as coarse as knives. They slid in, one by one.

Her breathing grew hard as one drifted slowly closer. Afraid. Perhaps for the first time she felt fear, numbed by the horrible cold seeping through her. She hated the weakness of emotions, and so she threw back her head and laughed, just as two hands grasped onto the back of her neck.

Fingers, cold like knives, pulled her forward, slowly forward.

She closed her eyes, not wanting to see, but almost against her will she opened them again.

What she saw was horrifying. It had already taken its hood off. It was leaning toward her now, closer, ever closer.

The dark tendrils around her heart fought till the last. They twisted and writhed against the force till they could take no more. And then, and only then, she screamed.

The dementors had taken her soul. Then again, Bellatrix Lestrange never had a soul in the first place.


	4. Punishment

**Punishment**

Her son. Her only son. Everything about it was pure cruelty.

Didn't they know that a mother had to act out to protect her child? Didn't they understand that she would be forced to act from desperation? They left her no choice.

She leaned her head against the cool wall.

* * *

><p><em>"There is a task to be done," the cold voice murmured to her.<em>

_She felt herself trembling but kept her voice steady. "What task?"_

_"Dumbledore." The name was said in disgust. "I believe it is time to rid ourselves of him once and for all."_

_"And you wish for me to carry it out?"_

_"No. I believe an insider would be…best."_

_It was then that she became truly scared._

* * *

><p><strong>"Don't you see that it's a blessing?"<strong>

**"Nothing the Dark Lord gives is a blessing. Not in this way," she hissed at him.**

**"It's a chance for me to prove myself! To follow in your footsteps!"**

**She raised her voice to match his. "It's a chance to get killed!"**

**"But I won't, because I **_**can**_** complete the task that he asks for. You'll see!"**

**"You don't understand! You're too young," she shouted in agony from her inability to make him see the truth.**

**Silence was her response.**

* * *

><p>Too late. Too late. He was already gone. The future was out of her hands. She stood alone in the room, the side of her head pressed against a wall, and felt utter defeat. Tears rolled down her cheeks almost as quickly as the droplets of rain slid down the window's glass. Too late.<p>

Now was the worst time to lose faith in the few things she had kept faith in over the years, but she felt her hope slipping away from her like sand slipped through one's fingers. Would she ever see him again?

It was too late to wonder.

* * *

><p><em>"Why must he do it? Any one of us could – I could do it. I could organize a much more capable mission." <em>

_Even though she pleaded, she already knew why he had been chosen. Punishment, for someone else's mistakes._

_"As capable as when I sent your husband to retrieve the prophecy? No, I think not. Let us see if your son can succeed where his father miserably failed."_

* * *

><p><strong>"You want me to fail!"<strong>

**"How can you say that? Draco! How can you say that?" she practically screamed at him. She was losing him with every word.**

**"As I see it, I've been personally chosen for a task by the Dark Lord because he thinks I'm capable. You're the one who doesn't!"**

**"No, Draco! Not chosen because you're capable, chosen because you're **_**incapable**_**. He wants you to fail! He wants to punish you for your father!"**

**"So you do think I can't do it."**

* * *

><p><em>"What makes you think he's ready? He might not succeed."<em>

_"If he does succeed, he will become an honored Death Eater, and will be showered with rewards and riches. Is not such a prize worth it?"_

_"But what if he does not succeed?"_

_"He shall bear the proper punishment for failure."_

_She almost began to cry then and there._

* * *

><p>A mockery. The Dark Lord was making a mockery of her and her family. A punishment. The worst punishment imaginable for her and her son.<p>

Silence echoed through the rooms in her empty house, in her ears, everywhere. That impending silence, just before a wand is pointed, just before a scream is uttered – the silence of approaching doom.

* * *

><p><strong>"Well, you can't control me anymore, no matter how much you try!"<strong>

* * *

><p><em>"You don't have a choice in this, Narcissa."<em>

* * *

><p>Too late. Too late. He was already gone.<p> 


	5. Memories

**Memories**

She had kept but three things from her childhood, which was plenty, considering it was a childhood she didn't want to remember. They were hidden in her nightstand's bottom drawer, buried purposefully underneath papers and useless items.

One of them was a leaf.

* * *

><p><em>She balanced it on the palm of her hand, staring at it intently, willing it to somehow move. But the leaf didn't budge. It never did.<em>

_Her sister made it look so simple, so easy. __**All you have to do is think about, **__her sister always said. And Petunia __**was**__ thinking, hard, but it made no difference. _

_Her sister had something she didn't, and no amount of willing would change that._

_"Tuney!" a happy, shrill voice startled her, and she quickly stuffed the leaf into the pocket of her dress. Her sister could never find out that Petunia was trying to practice magic every time she sneaked off into the forest. _

_Lily burst through the trees. "Tuney, Mum says it's time for lunch." _

_Petunia only nodded, clutching her fists in frustration and envy as she followed her sister home. _

_The next morning, after crying herself to sleep at night, she found the leaf, still in the pocket of her dress._

* * *

><p>The second one was a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. It wasn't opened.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Petunia sat on the floor of her room, her eyes still red from crying. Around her the ground was littered with scraps of paper that used to constitute a note, filled with her sister's sloppy writing. Two of the scraps were still clutched in her hands. One simply read:<em>

_**I'm sorry for looking at your private – **_

_And it stopped there, the other half of the fragment lying somewhere on the floor.__The other scrap was a different torn sentence:_

– _**sent you some candy from Hogsmeade to –**_

_This one was also incomplete. Besides the scraps, a small box stood in front of her, colorful in packaging and with the words __**Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans **__written on it._

_She glared at it, and as she did, she thought about the freakish world it had come from, about how it represented all the abnormality of her sister and of magic – stupid, stupid magic – and about how Petunia could never live up to that._

_A resounding thud was heard downstairs as the box of candies hit the wall of Petunia's room._

* * *

><p>The third and final item was a letter, folded neatly inside its original envelope. On it was the official insignia of the Hogwarts school, addressed to her.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Tears welled up in her eyes as she fingered the paper, filled out with neat script, ending in a flourishing signature. <em>

_"It is with great regret I must inform you that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is not at liberty to accept you in its course," Petunia read softly for perhaps the hundredth time. _

_Of course, this Dumbledore person was too kind to call her a Muggle. He had written that "the school requires people with certain abilities that not everyone possesses, and you should not feel at all for the worse because of this." _

_However, the meaning was clear. She wasn't good enough, but Lily was. And nothing would allow Petunia to live up to her younger sister's standards._

_"It's just a school for freaks," Petunia mumbled. "And I am most certainly __**not**__ a freak."_

* * *

><p>She kept these three items, hardly ever looking at them, trying to forget the memories they brought about; yet somehow she could never find it in her heart to let them go.<p>

However, she got rid of them all the day her nephew received his first letter.


	6. Wrappers

**Wrappers**

They didn't understand. They didn't understand that there was a world beyond the white, sterilized room they were in. They didn't understand why he only came to see them every once in a while – they didn't know where he went. He wished that he could explain everything to them, but he couldn't even begin. It was too painful.

Even so, he was never embarrassed by them; he pitied them. He wished he could remember more about how they were before – before they became shadows of themselves.

Wrappers. Each time he came she would give him a wrapper. A worthless, disposable wrapper. But to him it was a present – it was the best that she could do. Every wrapper he had (and he had so many he no longer knew what to do with them) was a sign of affection, an attempt of displaying her love for him. It didn't matter that they were wrappers. It didn't matter that he could throw them away if he wanted to. Because he never did.


End file.
